China AOS2 Interpretations Flashcards
Callick
Re: Military
‘It is not the army of the government, or of China more generally, but of the CCP.’
Fenby
Re: national unity in new political system
this amounted to ‘window dressing; the non-Communist politicians were known as “flower vases” - there for decoration.’
11/23 ministers in govt. were non-communist h/w CCP maintained dominant authority
Short
Re: Korean War propoganda
‘In this superheated atmosphere, the campaign to supress counter-revolutionaries burned white-hot.’
Short
Re: Escelation of Land Reform
‘Peasants who killed with their nare hands the landlords who oppressed them were wedded to the new revolutionary order in a way that passive spectators could never be.’
Dikotter
Re: Escelation of Land Reform
land reforms were ‘a pact sealed in blood between the Party and the poor.’
Meisner
Re: Thought Reform (intellectuals)
Communists saw campaign as ‘educational’ rather than vindictive with the aim of producing ‘correct thoughts’
Gray
Re: Wufan (businessmen)
Wufan was ‘an opportunity to pulverise China’s capitalists politically.’
Terril
Re: Wufan (businessmen)
It was not necessary for CCP to destroy bourgeoisie b/c easily subdued: ‘Many capitalists turned red when the heat went on, silently, like lobsters put in hot water.’
Dietrich
Re: Women’s Rights
China’s women had risen to the status of second-class citizens
Spence
Re: First 5 Year Plan
‘it was a formidable achievement.’
Dietrich
Re: Agricultural Stagnation on collectivisation
‘Did they prescribe the wrong medicine, or was the dose too small? Should they go backward or forward?’
Ryan
Re: Mao’s speeches prior High Tide
‘electrifying effect’
Ryan
Re: Hundred Flowers Campaign
Mao wants his ‘garden to bloom’
Ryan
Re: Hundred Flowers Campaign
‘blooming and contending’ when critics spoke out became a ‘fine rain’ of criticism that grew into a heavy downpour of resentment.’
Short
Re: reflection of Hundred Flowers Campaign
‘ambitious attempt… to combine a totalitarian system with democratic checks and balances… what started as an attempt to bridge the gap between the Party and the people… became a trap.’
Short
Re: GLF & High Tide
Mao was ‘on an adrenaline high pumped up by the limitless vista of a bright Communist future in which nothing would be able to withstand the concerted efforts of 600 million people.’
Fairbank
Re: People’s Communes
‘The state had become the ultimate landlord.’
Chang & Halliday
Re: People’s Communes
‘The aim was to make slave driving more efficient.’
Ryan
Re: People’s Communes
‘many ordinary people were genuinely enthusiastic for the People’s Communes.’
Salisbury
Re: Backyard steel
‘The country looked as though it had been picked clean by iron-eating ants.’
Terrill
Re: Manipulating statistics
Mao’s treatment of numbers reinforced the unrealistic nature of the Great Leap Forward
Chang
Re: Manipulating statistics
‘disregard for reality.’
Becker
Re: Manipulating Statistics
‘With each repetition, the lies became more and more fantastic, a ghastly parody of Chinese Whispers.’
Salisbury
Re: Post-Lushan
‘Mao turned his band of brothers into a claque, clapping hands and nodding heads like mechanical dolls.’
Fairbank
Re: Famine
‘an all-time first class manmade famine… the Great Leap Forward had played itself out as a Mao-made catastrophe.’
Becker
Re: Famine
‘famine culture’ led to practices such as ‘swap child, make food.’
Dikotter
Re: Famine
‘at least 45 million people died unnecessarily between 1958 and 1962.’
Hsu
Re: Socialist Education Movement
most officials found it ‘a hardship to be endured rather than an experience to be cherished.’
Hsu
Re: Mao’s frustration w Party
‘Mao became convinced that it was not his policies that were wrong: rather - it was those in high Party positions who were distorting and diluting their implementation.’
Fenby
Re: Mao’s frustrations w Party
‘grumblings of an irritable old man.’
Ryan
Re: Prelude to CR
‘a campaign of cataclysmic proportions.’
Ryan
Re: Little Red Book
‘pointless exercises in memorisation, with no practical benefit.’
Cook
Re: Little Red Book
‘A weapon of mass instruction.’
Dikotter
Re: Culture
‘The sheer scale of the idealogical rot was highlighted during the Socialist Education Campaign.’
Ryan
Re: Prelude to CR
Mao started an ‘extraordinary revolutionary movement against revisionist influences.’
Ryan
Re: Prelude to CR
Liu Shaoqui returned to a ‘political storm of dizzying complexity.’
Leys
Re: Cultural Revolution
‘It was a power struggle fought at the top between a handful of men and behind the smokescreen of a fictitious mass movement.’
Spence
Re: Cultural Revolution
‘This movement defies simple classification, for embedded within it were many impulses at once feeding and impeding each other.’
Fenby
Re: Cultrural Revolution
Mao was’ seeking immortality by identifying himself with symbols that would live on after him.’
Lifton
Re: Cultural Revolution
Quest by Mao to achieve
revolutionary immortality.’
Mitter
Re: Cultural Revolution
‘it was a genuinely mass political movement which left many youths as if they had the best days of their lives.’
Kraus
Re: Cultural Revolution
‘The Cultural Revolution’s politics were self-conciouslt theatrical.’
Ryan
Re: Mao’s Good Swim
Mao was ‘in fine health and more ready than ever to steer China through revolutionary waters.’
Moise
Re: Cultural Revolution
‘Mao’s followers, not having been told exactly who or what they were struggling against, had to conjure up pictures of the enemny from their imaginations.’
Spence
Re: Cultural Revolution
‘They were repressed, angry and aware of their powerlessness.’
Fenby
Re: Cultural Revolution
the movement grew because it was ‘responding to social and human elements that had little to do with ideology.’
Spence
Re: Cultural Revolution
it seems to ‘have been a case of allowing theory to grow out of practise, as Mao had always interpreted the revolutionary process to be.’
Feigon
Re: Ninth Party Congress (Victory of CR)
Mao had managed to ‘infuse the government with a group of women who, unlike their predecessors, looked, talked and thought like the people they represented.’
Chang & Halliday
Re: Post CR
‘A vast prison of the mind’ behind the bars of radical Maoist ideology
Feigon
Re: Positive legacies of CR
‘an enduring legacy of social justice, feminist ideals and even many democratic principles that still resonate with many in Chinese.’
Karl
Re: Positive legacies of CR
Cultural Revolution ‘was an inspiration to many… set free from constraints to practise mass politics.’
Kraus
Re: Positive legacies of CR
‘China’s greatest experiment in participatory democracy.’
Mabo Gao
Re: Barefoot Doctors
‘fairly effective healthcare system.’
Kraus
Re: Cleansing the Ranks
‘most violent aspect of the Cultural Revolution.’
Spence
Re: May Seventh Schools
‘were as much prisons as schools.’
Chang & Halliday
Re: Lin Biao’s Fall
refusing to make a self-criticsm ‘credibility tarnished further.’
Teiwes
Re: Lin Biao’s Death
it ‘had a disorientating effect among ordinary Communists and cadres…’
Ryan
Re: Lin Biao’s Death
‘How could a man so close to Mao turn out to be a criminal and backstabber?’
